The Obama administration is moving toward a major policy shift on Syria that could provide rebels there with equipment such as body armor and armored vehicles, and possibly military training, and could send humanitarian assistance directly to Syria’s opposition political coalition, according to U.S. and European officials.

The administration has not provided direct aid to the military or political side of the opposition throughout the two-year-old conflict, and U.S. officials remain opposed to providing weapons to the rebels.

Elements of the proposed policy, which officials cautioned have not yet been finalized, are being discussed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry in meetings this week and next with allies in Europe and the Middle East as part of a coordinated effort to end the bloody stalemate, which has claimed about 70,000 lives.

Those talks, along with a nearly two-hour meeting in Berlin on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and a Thursday conference with allies and leaders of the Syrian Opposition Coalition in Rome, are expected to weigh heavily on administration deliberations.

Kerry has repeatedly made indirect references to a policy shift during his travels. He told a group of German students Tuesday that while the United States wants a “peaceful resolution” in Syria, if its leaders refuse to negotiate and continue to kill citizens, “then you need to at least provide some kind of support” for those fighting for their rights.

On Monday in London, he said: “We are not coming to Rome simply to talk. We’re coming . . . to make decisions about next steps.”

Obama loves his drones and refuses to let congressional authority stop him. Wonder if this qualifies Obama for another worthless Nobel Peace Prize?

WASHINGTON — About 100 U.S. troops have deployed to the West Africancountry of Niger to help establish a drone base for surveillance missions, in the latest step by the United States to aid French forces battling Islamic militants in neighboring Mali.

So much for Obama’s claim of bringing the troops home. He never promised he would keep them here.

In a letter to Congress on Friday, President Obama said the deployment would “provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region.”

Just your typical usurping of Congressional powers from the Dear Leader.

The last 40 American troops in the deployment arrived in Niger on Feb. 20 with the consent of the government, Obama said.

The consent of the Nigerian government, not the consent of Congress who represents US.

A senior U.S. officer described the troops as a security unit that will protect crews flying and maintaining U.S. Air Forcedrones now operating from an airfield near the capital, Niamey. The force includes drone pilots, intelligence liaison officers and aircraft maintenance personnel, the officer said.

“We’re basing drones there to help the French, and this deployment is the security element,” the officer said.

He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the operation publicly.

A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West.

The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.”

The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?” A translation was obtained by Inside the Ring.

“The answer for it, in short: The coming strikes by al Qaeda, with God’s Might, will be in the heart of the land of nonbelief, America, and in France, Denmark, other countries in Europe, in the countries that helped and are helping France, and in other places that shall be named by al Qaeda at other times,” the threat states.

The attacks will be “strong, serious, alarming, earth-shattering, shocking and terrifying.”

Under a section of the post on the method of the attacks, the unidentified writer said the strikes would be “group and lone-wolf operations, in addition to the use of booby-trapped vehicles.”

“All operations will be recorded and published in due time,” the message said. “Let France be prepared, and let the helpers of France be prepared, for it is going to be a long war of attrition.”

There are still 200,000 armed fighters in “revolutionary brigades” in Libya, a top UN envoy said Tuesday, expressing fears that Mali’s conflict could spillover into the country.

Foreign governments have raised concerns about security in Libya and UN envoy to the country Tarek Mitri said France’s military campaign in Mali had opponents in Libya.

“Opposition of armed radical groups to the military intervention in Mali may exacerbate the situation given ideological and/or ethnic affiliations as well as porous borders in Libya,” Mitri told the Security Council.

He said that border security was a “concern” because of unrest in Libya, particularly around the eastern city of Benghazi, and “the possible impact of recent developments in Mali.”

Mitri told reporters after the meeting there are up to 200,000 armed men in the revolutionary brigades that overthrew late dictator Moamer Kadhafi who are still not under government control.

He added that an estimated 7,000 prisoners are still being held in jails run by the militias since the fall of Kadhafi in 2011.

No mention of Obama plans on walking back his campaign rhetoric about how he is responsible for decimating al-Qaeda and has the terrorist organization on “its heels.”

WASHINGTON — The United States military command in Africa is preparing plans to establish a drone base in northwest Africa to increase unarmed surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region.

For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.

If the base is approved, the most likely location for it would be in Niger, a largely desert nation on the eastern border of Mali, where French and Malian troops are now battling Qaeda-backed fighters who control the northern part of that country. The American military’s Africa Command is also discussing options for the base with other countries in the region, including Burkina Faso, officials said.

The immediate impetus for a drone base in the region is to provide surveillance assistance to the French-led operation in Mali. “This is directly related to the Mali mission, but it could also give Africom a more enduring presence for I.S.R.,” one American military official said Sunday, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

A handful of unarmed Predator drones would carry out surveillance missions in the region and fill a desperate need for more detailed information on a range of regional threats, including militants in Mali and the unabated flow of fighters and weapons from Libya. American military commanders and intelligence analysts complain that such information has been sorely lacking.

No hard questions about purposely lying to the American people about the YouTube video or the Benghazi cover-up or the secret arms deal that let weapons fall into the hands of al-Qaeda linked rebels. Just more media cheer-leading for Obama.

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended their foreign policy record in the middle East, saying in an interview aired Sunday that they wisely chose not to “shoot from the hip.”

In a joint interview aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” the president and secretary of State said the United States has not retreated from the world stage, a charge made by critics urging the Obama administration to do more to intervene in Syria and take a tougher stance with Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Middle East is more dangerous under Obama than at any other time in recent history.

Obama cited both Egypt and Libya as instances where his administration played a leading role, saying that former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi “probably does not agree with that assessment” of U.S. retreat.

Obama was pulled into the Libyan conflict after France and the UK were already there. Always leading from behind. How has that Libya deal worked out? Gadhafi is dead but now Islamic terrorists are in control.

“We do nobody a service when we leap before we look, where we take on things without having thought through all the consequences of it,” Obama said in the interview.

Except when the administration leaped to fraudulently blame a YouTube video for the attack and won’t allow more than 20 survivors to be interviewed. Egypt is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Qaeda linked) and Obama sends them American F-16 fighter jets and tanks. Syria is in the midst of a civil war between President Assad and Syrian rebels. Iran is closer to producing a nuclear bomb and Northern Africa is now al-Qaeda’s headquarters. Americans have been killed by Islamic terrorists in Libya and Algiers.

They’re not really trying to find answers. They’re just trying to stall the truth from escaping.

(CNSNews.com) – In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, five State Department Diplomatic Security agents who were in Benghazi that day and survived the attack were evacuated from the country and taken to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

All five had suffered from smoke inhalation, and one was seriously wounded.

Under questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R.-Wis.) in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that she has spoken to only one of the American survivors who was evacuated from Libya after the Benghazi attack. Presumably, this was one of the five Diplomatic Security officers who fought off the terrorists at the State Department’s Benghazi Special Mission Compound on Sept. 11 and who lived to be able to report as eyewitnesses about what had happened there that day.

The Obama administration has not yet publicly named a single one of these five surviving State Department heroes.

In fact, the only American witnesses to the Benghazi attack who have been named by the Obama administration are the four whom the terrorists killed–Amb. Chris Stevens, State Department Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who were working for the CIA, not for Clinton’s State Department.

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Maybe Obama can get back those billions that were awarded to his campaign bundlers who spent the money and then declared bankruptcy? Now in the middle of the biggest increase in National Debt in US history, and his sequestration cuts, he wants more money to give to his campaign bundlers? From Yahoo News: After three […]

Double taxation is something Democrats love. Too bad criminals rarely buy the firearms they use in crimes from gun shops so this tax only affects law-abiding citizens of Cook County. From Chicago Sun Times: A group of Chicago area gun dealers and owners filed a lawsuit Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, aiming to halt […]

Thanks to the election of Barack Obama, parasites and criminals now feel empowered to demand freebies. With Obama’s illegal open border/stop deportation policies, US taxpayers will have 12 million more parasites to pay for. This only happens in America. No other countries allow criminals to openly live and mooch off their citizenry.

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As most suspected. Obama showing up at an event to showcase the southern part of the Keystone Pipeline was just a photo-op to trick stupid Americans who believe anything he says. WASHINGTON (AP) — Jobs numbers and other benefits touted by supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are probably exaggerated, President Barack Obama told […]